Vrana, a Czech Republic native, has been a star for their national team at the World Junior Championships and Under-18 World Championships. As Chuck Gormley of CSNWashington.com shared, the Caps think highly of his abilities.

“He obviously has shown really good speed,” Caps assistant general manager Ross Mahoney said last week. “In a shootout he showed his hands and his slap shot is one that not a lot of people are going to be able to stop.”

If Vrana impresses enough in camp, that’d put the Caps in curious position to possibly go with a lot of youth as they’ll have 2013 first-round pick Andre Burakovsky also pushing to make the club.

PHT’s Morning Skate takes a look around the world of hockey to see what’s happening and what we’ll be talking about around the NHL world and beyond.

It’s the day that virtually signals the start of a new season while putting an end to the previous one. Today, fans, your team molds its future by signing (or avoiding signing) players to new potentially gigantic new deals beginning at noon ET.